Snacks, Batteries Among Top Drone-Delivered Items as Walmart Scales Service
Weather and geographical conditions, plus states’ willingness to work with drone deliveries, are among the factors determining where Walmart offers delivery by partner DroneUp, a company spokesperson emailed Wednesday. Walmart announced Tuesday it was expanding drone deliveries to customers in Arkansas, Texas, Florida, Arizona, Virginia and Utah this year, bringing the number of U.S. customers with access to drone deliveries to 4 million across six states.
The retailer plans to expand the DroneUp delivery network to 34 sites by the end of 2023 with the ability to delivery over a million packages in a year, blogged David Guggina, senior vice president-innovation and automation. On which markets won’t have drone delivery, the spokesperson said: “Walmart is listening to their customers to determine where to bring these new options.”
Participating Walmart stores will house a DroneUp delivery hub staffed by a team of certified pilots, operating within FAA guidelines, who safely manage flight operations for deliveries, Guggina said: “Once a customer places an order, the item is fulfilled from the store, packaged, loaded into the drone and delivered right to their yard using a cable that gently lowers the package.”
Drones are kept within a safe operating area with “pilot monitoring” when in use and kept secure when not in use, Amy Wiegand, DroneUp senior director-marketing and communications, told us in response to our question on how the delivery service protects against pranksters. DroneUp operates using a private, secure network, Wiegand said. Access to the drones “follows zero-trust networking principles and access is defined based on individual user identities and limited to specific drones and services per user,” she said. “All traffic is encrypted and the identity of the sender is constantly reverified.” DroneUp also includes verification of positioning, navigation and timing data using multiple sensors and “constant monitoring with an onboard pre-programmed failsafe,” she said.
Drone drop-offs, which carry a $3.99 delivery fee, are carried out between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. local time, Walmart said. Maximum weight is 10 pounds and items must meet size requirements, the Walmart spokesperson said, without elaborating. “Simply put, if it fits safely it flies,” Guggina blogged.
“Tens of thousands” of items are eligible for drone delivery by Walmart, Guggina said, citing convenience items such as “Tylenol, diapers and hot dog buns, for delivery by air in as little as 30 minutes.” The spokesperson told us Hamburger Helper, Welch’s fruit snacks, batteries, trash bags and laundry detergent are among the high-volume purchases Walmart customers have gotten by drone delivery to date. The service completed “hundreds” of deliveries over the past couple of months using existing DroneUp hubs in Northwest Arkansas. Walmart and DroneUp announced the first drone delivery operation in November.
Walmart, a "significant" DroneUp investor, also plans to outsource drone service to communities, Guggina said. As the retailer scales the infrastructure, it will offer drone photography capabilities to local businesses such as insurance and real estate companies, along with emergency response teams, he said. Guggina gave the example of a local construction company working with DroneUp to monitor on-site progress via aerial drone photography.